PCX -> to -> PICTURE v1.01    by Eskil Blomfeldt / Tobakk, Porno og Fyrverkeri



_____:LEGAL
  You may not accept money in exchange for this software. You may
distribute it freely as long as all files, including this one, are
included in their original unchanged form.
  If you wish to include this software on a shareware/freeware-compilation
that will not be free of charge, please contact me at eskilbl@online.no.


_____:OVERVIEW
  PCX2PIC is a small piece of freeware that converts .PCX to the AGI
"PICTURE resource"-format.
  AGI is Sierra On-line's old adventure game interpreter, used for,
among others, the early "KING'S QUEST"-games and "SPACE QUEST"-games.
If you have no idea what AGI is, you should search the internet for pages
on the subject.
  PCX2PIC is intented to be a small utility that will make creating
AGI-games a little easier. It will scan a bitmap PCX-picture and convert
it to the vectorbased PICTURE-format. This could be extremely useful
for intro-screens and non-interactive screens, but it could also work
for interactive scenes, although in that case you would have to add
priorities manually in PICEDIT later. Another way could be to draw the
background as a bitmap, convert it, and then add objects etc. in PICEDIT
afterwards.
  The advantage of PCX2PIC should be obvious. Atleast for people like me,
who are not talented graphics-artists, it is a lot easier to create pictures
using programs like "Deluxe Paint" or other bitmap-based software. When
you are using PCX2PIC you could also create the images in 256 or more
colors and use a graphics program to reduce the resolution for you.


_____:USING PCX2PIC
  PCX2PIC recieves filenames on the commandline. For instance, you
should type "PCX2PIC IN.PCX OUT.PIC" to read the file IN.PCX and
write the file OUT.PIC. Type "PCX2PIC -?" for more information.
  PCX2PIC will read a 256-color PCX-picture(see next section) and
scan 160x168 of it, starting at coordinates (1,1). If you try scanning
an image larger than this, only the top-left corner of the screen will
be converted.
  To optimize PCX2PIC for your use, you should read the PCX2PIC.CFG-file.
It has a few options that can help you make PCX2PIC go either speedier,
or make smaller files as a result. Descriptions of options and how they
are used are in the configuration-file. If you did not get such a file
with this program, or if it did not contain descriptions of the options,
you should download the official version of this program at:
  "http://home.sol.no/~eskilbl/agi/p2pcur.zip"
If this address does not work(it will change soon), you should try
searching other AGI-pages for the file.
  I would strongly recommend that you take a look at the configuration-file.
For instance, there is a very helpful option called OPTIMIZE that you can
change. At the moment it is not set to the best possible
optimization(called "accurate"), and, especially with detailed pictures
you will get the best results using this optimization.


_____:KNOWN BUGS
  20.5.1998| PCX2PIC has trouble when converting images with patches
             of white. This can be fixed with the FIXWHITE-option in
             the configuration-file, but this will not work on all
             pictures. You can try it and see, but I have had trouble
             with it(some areas that should be filled are left blank).
             Hope you find a way to make it work. Blank areas could
             be filled manually in PICEDIT after the conversion.

           | This isn't actually a bug, it's more of a missing feature.
             I used an old PCX-loader that I created a long time ago
             for PCX2PIC, because I didn't feel up to doing it from
             scratch. This PCX-loader only supports 256-color PCX-images,
             because that's all I ever needed. PCX2PIC will only read
             256-color images properly, and only images with a 320x200
             resolution or lower. I will try to change this soon, but
             right now, I just want to release the damned thing.


_____:CONTACTING ME
  I welcome comments, suggestions and bug-reports for this
product. E-mail me at "eskilbl@online.no" to tell me what you think.
I am pretty open for ideas for changes I can make to the program, although
I will have to give this program a lower priority than school and some
of my other projects. I will try to get some work done on it however.


_____:VERSION HISTORY
  Date      | Version   | Notes
  ---------- ----------- ------
  20.5.1998 | 1.00      | First release
  21.5.1998 | 1.01      | Just a small update.
            |           | - Optimized the line-optimization routines
            |           |   a lot. The ones in the first version were
            |           |   extremely slow, and they've been improved
            |           |   by a million(to the point where you can
            |           |   actually use the accurate optimization on
            |           |   detailed images).
            |           | - Made the "SORT = NO"-option a little more
            |           |   efficient by only changing the color if
            |           |   the color actually changed. Earlier the
            |           |   program put a changecolor-code in front
            |           |   of every line and fill if sorting was turned
            |           |   off. Not anymore.


_____:FUTURE OF PCX2PIC
  - I plan to add support for 16 color PCX-pictures as soon as I get
    the time.
  - I plan to add a remap-option, that remaps the palette of your image
    to the default PICEDIT-palette.

--
tobakk porno og fyrverkeri
  "we put the art in artificial"
